May 24, 2017
Page 7
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O PINION
Boosting Brain Power in Early Childhood
Simple and fun
activities to share
M arian W right e delMan
What if boosting a toddler’s
brainpower was as easy as turning
on a light switch? In fact, “Flip
the Switch” is one of the simple
activities suggested by Vroom, an
initiative that provides creative
tools and materials to help families turn daily
interactions with children into “brain build-
ing moments.”
On one side of an electronic “flashcard”
Vroom describes this idea for children be-
tween six months and two years old: “Before
leaving the house today, let your child be the
one to turn off the lights. Help them flip all
the switches and talk about how their actions
turn the lights off for darkness and on for
light.”
On the reverse side Vroom explains the
“brainy background” behind it: “This game
teaches your child about cause and effect.
When one of you hits the switch, your child
will observe how the lights turn off and on.
Have a conversation about what is happening
so they learn some new words too.”
Vroom, an initiative of the Bezos Family
Foundation, is one of a number of initiatives
across the country focused on empower-
ing parents to boost early childhood brain
development. The first five years of life are
by
the time of greatest brain development. Ear-
ly nurturing interactions with caring adults
form the basis of a healthy brain foundation.
The strong case for increased federal invest-
ments for quality child care and other
early childhood programs is bolstered
by the great local work supporting
families and communities in building
healthy brains during children’s earli-
est years of life.
A baby is born with a brain 25 per-
cent as large as an adult brain. Researchers at
the Institute for Learning and Brain Science
at the University of Washington tell us that
by the time she reaches her fifth birthday, her
brain is already over 90 percent of the size
of her mature brain. That startling period of
growth in size is mirrored by the growth in
neural connections needed to learn how to
process information and build skills.
The Center on the Developing Child at
Harvard University reports that in the earliest
years of a child’s life more than one million
of these connections are formed every sec-
ond, with simpler connections paving the
way for more complex ones. These early
connections build the foundation for chil-
dren’s future health, education and behavior.
Every time adults respond appropriately
to a young child’s calls for attention, they
are helping build and strengthen neural con-
nections and supporting the development
of a strong brain foundation. The Center on
the Developing Child refers to this quality
parent-child communication as “serve and
return” interactions and says the absence of
them is a “serious threat” to a child’s devel-
opment.
Following a 2011 conference by Dr. Ron
Ferguson devoted to discovering what par-
ents need to know to help eliminate skill
gaps already evident at age two, an advisory
committee of researchers came up with five
“basics” all parents should practice with their
children to support healthy brain develop-
ment: Maximize love and manage stress; 2)
Talk, sing and point; 3) Count, group, and
compare; 4) Explore through movement and
play; and 5) Read and discuss stories.
The Boston Basics Campaign is being
infused throughout the Boston community
— engaging health care providers, places
of worship, libraries and museums, barber-
shops, early childhood centers, and schools
to ensure parents are saturated with informa-
tion about how to support their child’s brain
development wherever they go.
Boston Basics demonstrates the potential
for private organizations and government
partners to come together in support of young
children in a community. The Black Philan-
thropy Fund was instrumental in investing
time and resources to lead the campaign,
which is now being expanded to a number
of other cities.
“Too Small to Fail,” a joint initiative of
the Clinton Foundation and the Opportuni-
ty Institute, launched the excellent public
awareness and action campaign “Talking
is Teaching: Talk, Read, Sing,” which uses
books, parent videos, text messaging, and so-
cial media to share fun and easy ways for par-
ents and caregivers to boost their child’s early
brain and vocabulary development. There are
now “Talking is Teaching Word Gap” cam-
paigns in dozens of cities across the country.
Just as the latest research shows that in-
vestments in quality early childhood pro-
grams generate an average annual return
of more than 13 percent on every dollar in-
vested, every effort made in boosting young
children’s brainpower — including the thou-
sands of simple, fun, and free activities par-
ents and caregivers can weave into everyday
life — benefits all of us later on.
These important community initiatives
are essential but cannot make up for needed
public investments in programs that support
children’s early development. High-quality
child care and other early opportunities are
out of reach for too many children and fam-
ilies that need them but are also critical for
further strengthening children’s early brain
development.
Healthy early child brain development is
not a partisan issue. Congress should em-
brace the evidence and make the investments
needed today to guarantee every baby has a
strong start to ensure a strong America to-
morrow.
Marian Wright Edelman is president of
the Children’s Defense Fund.
Pleasing Wealthy Donors and Wall Street Corporations
Why Congress
wants to cut
your health care
C huCk C ollins
Members of the
House GOP were in
a hurry on May 4 to
pass their bill to gut
Obamacare. They
rushed it through
before anyone even
had a chance to check its cost or
calculate its impact on people’s
access to insurance.
Their urgency, however, had
little to do with health care. The
real reason for the rush? To set the
table for massive tax cuts.
Indeed, the House health plan
would give a $1 trillion boon to
wealthy households and pave the
way for still bigger corporate tax
cuts to come, as part of the so-
called “tax reform” they’re push-
ing.
Meanwhile, dismantling the
Affordable Care Act will cause
up to 24 million people to lose
their health coverage, according
to the non-partisan Congressional
Budget Office. (Though even that
estimate is based on the less ex-
by
treme version of the bill that failed
to pass in April. The new plan may
be even worse.)
Why would a GOP politician
support an unpopular bill that few-
er than 20 percent of voters think
is a good idea? Why risk an-
gry constituents showing up
at town hall meetings?
Put simply, to please their
wealthy donors and Wall
Street corporations. For com-
plex legislative reasons, re-
pealing Obamacare’s taxes on
the rich first will make it easier for
them to slash corporate taxes next.
As the “tax reform” debate be-
gins, prepare for sermons about
how cutting taxes for rich and
global corporations will be great
for the economy. Slashing the cor-
porate tax rate, we’ll be told, will
boost U.S. competitiveness.
But if Congress were really
concerned about the economy,
policy wouldn’t be driven by tax
cuts. The real parasite eating the
insides of the U.S. economy isn’t
taxes, billionaire investor Warren
Buffett explained recently, but
health care.
In fact, taxes have been steadi-
ly going down, especially for the
very wealthy and global corpo-
rations. “As a percent of GDP,”
Buffett told shareholders of his
investment firm, the corporate tax
haul “has gone down.” But “med-
ical costs, which are borne to a
great extent by business,” have
increased.
In 1960, corporate taxes in the
U.S. were about 4 percent of the
economy. Today, they’re less than
half that.
As taxes have fallen, mean-
while, the share of GDP spent on
health care has gone from 5 per-
cent of the economy in the 1960s
to 17 percent today.
These costs are the real “tax”
on businesses. As any small busi-
ness owner can tell you, health
care costs are one of the biggest
expenses in maintaining a healthy
and productive work force.
Yet the GOP bill will weaken
health care coverage and regula-
tion, which will increase costs and
hurt U.S. companies.
U.S. employers, remember,
must compete with countries that
have superior universal health
insurance for their citizens and
significantly lower costs. While
health care eats up 17 percent of
the U.S. economy, it’s around just
11 percent in Germany, 10 percent
in Japan, 9 percent in Britain, and
5.5 percent in China.
No wonder Buffett concluded
that “medical costs are the tape-
worm of American economic
competitiveness.”
Buffett observed that the House
health care bill would give him
an immediate $680,000 annual
tax cut, a break he doesn’t real-
ly need, while only allowing that
tapeworm to bore deeper.
For all its limitations, the Af-
fordable Care Act has expanded
coverage and the quality of life
for millions of Americans. It’s
also put in place important provi-
sions to contain exploding health
care expenses, slowing the rise of
costs.
The GOP plan to reduce cov-
erage and deregulate health care
will take us in the wrong direction.
That’s a pretty poor bargain for
yet another tax cut for the richest
Americans.
Chuck Collins is a senior schol-
ar at the Institute for Policy Stud-
ies and a co-editor of Inequality.
org. He’s the author of the recent
book Born on Third Base. Distrib-
uted by OtherWords.org.
The Law Offices of
Patrick John Sweeney, P.C.
Patrick John Sweeney
Attorney at Law
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